This article discusses the importance of social interaction for the development of the representations for symbolic communication. We suggest that there is no need to distinguish between different representational systems emerging at different stages of development. Instead, we propose that representations are rich right from the beginning of a child’s life, and that they are driven mainly by acting and interacting in the physical and social world. The more variety in a child’s interactional experience (i.e., synchrony, sequentiality, and prediction), the more enriched and abstracted the representations become. We review literature providing evidence for the ways in which infants’ development toward symbolic communication benefits from repeated social (inter)action and consider some implications for computational approaches.

(2015) From establishing reference to representing events independent from the here and now: A longitudinal study of depictive practices in early childhood. GESPIN Gesture and Speech in Interaction proceedings, Nantes 2–4 September 2015, 143–148.

(2010) Kommunikation von Anfang an: Die Entwicklung von Sprache in den ersten Lebensmonaten [Communication right from the start: Language development in the first months of life]. Tübingen, Germany: Stauffenburg.

Lerner, G. , Zimmerman, D. H. , & Kidwell, M.

(2011) Formal structures of practical tasks: A resource for action in the social life of very young children. In J. Streeck , Goodwin, C. , & C. D. LeBaron (Eds.), Embodied interaction. Language and body in the material world (pp. 44–58). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

(1989) Forms and functions of vocal matching in interactions between mothers and their precanonical infants. First Language, 9(6), 137–157. doi: 10.1177/014272378900900603

Papoušek, M. , & Papoušek, H.

(1990) Excessive infant crying and intuitive parental care: Buffering support and its failures in parent-infant interaction. Early Child Development and Care, 65(1), 117–126. doi: 10.1080/0300443900650114

Papoušek, M. , Papoušek, H. , & Harris, B. J.

(1987) The emergence of play in parent-infant interactions. In D. Görlitz & J. F. Wohlwill (Eds.) Curiosity, imagination, and play: On the development of spontaneous cognitive and motivational processes (pp. 214–246). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

(1979) Communication and cooperation in early infancy: A description of primary intersubjectivity. In M. Bullowa (Ed.), Before speech. The beginning of interpersonal communication (pp. 321–347). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.